Homecoming of a Teme
by Gerfuls Galore
Summary: "Welcome home, Sasuke" "I'm home, Sakura" She locked the door to her office and they went out into the evening. Neither spoke as they walked toward the Tower, in spite of the many things they had to say. Nonetheless, they knew they had to figure things out, if only to achieve closure from the past. This he had come to know. This she believed in.


She offered him one of the bottles when they got to a door at the end of the hallway, and he saw her use that free hand to turn its handle under the flickering yellow light. She ignored the light switch and made for the center of the room, where a long wooden desk blocked the moonlight from spilling onto the floor, He went in after her, observing how the faint glow of Konoha's night scenery reflected on the pool at the foot of the floor-to-ceiling window, and shutting the door before taking in how the stars of the night sky seemed laid down at their feet until the water turned to stone tiles.

He sat when she gestured to a couch- green, he made out in the shadows- and tried to appear at ease as she settled onto the opposite couch, slinging an arm over its back and observing him over the rim of her beer.

"So you're back."

Her gaze was guarded, but didn't show any signs of hostility or wariness.

"Aa. It- It's good to be back."

He'd planned this, thought out a hello, a brief summary of his travels, and an explanation for his return, how he was glad to see her again, and how had she been? He'd wanted to convey how much he'd grown in these two years-

"I'm glad."

-but words escaped him. He tried to make out her silhouette in the gloom and got the distinct sense that something had shifted. Unreadable, that's what it was. He wasn't sure how to go about this, and nerves began to creep towards the edges of his confidence.

He opened his mouth when the silence began to seep into the room, but sudden movement from where she was shut him up again. She took a drink from her bottle and resumed their staring match, her eyes the only distinguishable part of her face. He found he had trouble meeting them. Admonishing himself for being such a coward when all he'd been thinking of for the last month was seeing her again, he resolved to at least say he'd had a decent trip.

"I-"

"We-"

Viridian met onyx as they both lapsed into silence again. Unreadable indeed, this was.

"Go ahead," he said at length.

"We're glad you're back. The teams are holding a party for you tomorrow."

"A-...Thank you."

"Save that for tomorrow, Sasuke."

He finally held her gaze for more than a moment, and this led her to smile at him, from what he could make out. She must have been able to tell his confusion from his face despite the darkness, because in the next moment she grinned wider to convey how much this amused her. Figuring that the awkwardness of this whole ordeal could be considered humorous from an outsider's perspective, he cracked a tentative grin as well.

As if reaching a mutual understanding to let go of the tension between them, they chuckled at the other before carrying on.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" She betrayed her curiosity by sitting up straighter when she addressed him. He should have seen this coming; as they grew, Sakura had gotten more to the point. Before any unsavory memories could resurface, he placed his elbows on his knees, as if it would help him think, and began to reply.

"Yes. For the most part. I thought about a lot of things, and fixed a lot of my wrongs, and while there's always more to do, I've grown enough."

"Enough for what?"

He looked up at her from where he'd been refracting light with his drink. A million answers raced through his head, but a blush overtook him before any of them escaped him, and he gazed down once more.

 _Coward_

 _Half of the words he'd meant to speak, he'd begun to think himself unworthy of uttering._

"S-sorry, I mean, that's...good"

Wariness entered her tone before she crossed her legs, and he cursed himself.

He exhaled.

He may as well resign himself to the fact that this was not going to be easy.

"Iie. It's fine. I feel like I've grown enough to see how far I'd fallen, and how much you and Naruto and Kakashi and everyone else suffered because of me, and how lucky I am that you all brought me back, and just how grateful I am for that, and how undese-"

His voice broke.

He inhaled.

His hands were white on the bottle, but he set it aside. He couldn't meet the gaze of the shinobi in front of him, but he could do this much. He knelt on the ground, lowered his arms and bowed lower than he had to anyone in his life. If anyone deserved this, it was her. And maybe Naruto, but he wasn't thinking about the Dobe now.

"Sakura, makotoni-moushiwake-gozaimasen-deshita"

She was holding her breath. He didn't dare move from where he was, or to look at anything that wasn't the ground, but he kept going. Maybe this horrid silence would go away.

"Everything I did was inexcusable, and I've caused you pain and sorrow you didn't deserve. You've only ever wanted what was best for me, and for years I took it for granted and scorned you for it. You could have given up on me at any time, you'd even have been better off for it, and yet you never- you never-"

He heard footsteps stop in front of him and said no more, fearing that this was the moment in which Sakura decided she'd had enough of him in her life and slew him. If he was honest, he felt he would deserve it. Sasuke was trembling. Uchiha Sasuke, who in a short nineteen years of existence had lived enough horrors for lifetimes and had fought a literal Goddess not two years ago, was shaking from head to toe because he feared that he would soon face judgment from the hand of one of the few precious people he had left and it would be grisly. Still, he had never backed down from anything in life, so why should his final moments before death be any different? After all, repentance outweighed his apprehension.

More movement. For all his mental bravado, Sasuke worried he was breathing his last, to the point that when a hand came to rest on his shoulder, he flinched as if it had struck him.

"Sasuke," he heard. Why would she be calling for him to get up? Nonetheless he did, and the blurry sight of her face made him realize he had begun to shed tears. She sat before him and wiped them away even as her own fell, and through his surprise he saw her quiet acceptance.

 _Why,_ his expression asked her what words could not, _why would you forgive me after everything?_

Sakura smiled once more. At first it evoked the warmth of a sunbeam, radiant after a storm, and Sasuke marveled in this person's capacity for forgiveness. The more he basked in this warmth, however, the more his former team-mate's face gained an edge, until cold sweat began to sprout from the back of his neck. The temperature in the room seemed to drop drastically, and before he had time to react in any way, a fist with the fortitude of an iron hammer knocked him into oblivion.

Uchiha Sasuke knew no more.


End file.
